HOMER'S epic saga is transferred from ancient Greece to modern Europe in writer-director David Farr's re-telling of Greek general Odysseus's travels and travails.

Where once this was the heroic drama of the sacker of Troy and wanderer of the high seas on his 20-year struggle to return home to his wife, Penelope (Agni Tsangararidou), here it is a story for our age of asylum seekers craving new homes.

The grandeur of Greek tragedy has been stripped away, replaced both by a bearded, close-cropped, prop-forward Odysseus in worn T-shirt and jeans (Robert Bowman) and Angela Davies's theatre-in-the-round design made up of the sea's baggage: oil drums, cabin doors and a battered mast.

This raised platform will serve as ship, Lotus Eaters' island, the home of Cyclops, the palace of seductive sorcerer Circe and a detention centre in a study of identity, home, war and immigration.

Farr's elliptical new adaptation, premiered at the Old Bristol Old Vic and now given its northern premiere, opens with Bowman's Odysseus washed ashore and facing roughhouse interrogation by two immigration officers (Colin Mace, Stuart McLoughlin). "You're going home, sunshine," says Mace's officer from the heard-it-all-before school of hard-luck stories. Except that he has not heard this response before: "I want to go home," says Odysseus.

Our hero, re-cast as an ordinary man, goes on to re-tell his story so far. Faced by political machinations and establishment heavy-handedness, he is an honest soul adrift with his crew, all the while searching for his identity. Odysseus still asks questions in the tradition of the heroic lead, but that monologue musing is crudely interrupted by the officers telling him: "We ask the questions."

Farr's production style is reminiscent of Kneehigh's imaginative work, with its use of puppetry, all-in-one yet adaptable set design, and haunting and jaunty European music (by Stu Barker) played by multi-national, multi role-playing cast. This is simple, vigorous street theatre, made with found objects such as a crude lamp for Cyclops's eye, and rooted in traditional yet modern storytelling. Humorous yet serious, The Odyssey has found a new home.

Box office: 0113 213 7700.

Updated: 10:04 Tuesday, April 12, 2005